Advances In Alzheimer Treatments

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It turned out that the news about Bapineuzumab was more nuanced than this. Overall, the drug had failed to work, but when researchers parsed through the data, they found that it had shown activity for a subset of test subjects, those who lacked a genetic trait called APOE4 that has been linked to a high risk for Alzheimer's.

Elan and Wyeth will move the drug into a Phase III trial focusing on this subset of patients—though in Chicago, this partial success was not fully understood. That news, coming on top of the Myriad flop, disappointed attendees and left them looking for some good news.

Then Claude Wischik, co-founder and chairman of TauRx Therapeutics, delivered his news.

Actually, Wischik, a researcher at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and an expert on the Tau protein, reported mostly modest, but positive results from the podium. Even so, many at the meeting were cheered that there might be a compound that will detangle Tau—a process that some speculated could be used in tandem with amyloid-busters to deliver a double-punch to this disease.

So how did this guardedly optimistic presentation of data turn into headlines announcing that Rember is a wonder drug?

Apparently, it was a press release issued about the results. Here is the breathtaking headline and first paragraph:

TauRx Therapeutics Ltd & University of Aberdeen
New treatment halts progress of Alzheimer's disease

A major breakthrough in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease is revealed today (July 29) by scientists at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease (ICAD 2008) in Chicago, Illinois. Their pioneering research points to a new treatment that appears to slow the progress of the disorder by 81 percent over a year, and could offer hope to millions worldwide. The product—Rember—is the first drug to act on the tangles discovered by Alois Alzheimer over a century ago.

As one observer at the meeting told me, this press release was "very aggressively worded."

The result was that a number of science writers went momentarily gaga; headlines blasted from London and Tokyo to Chicago and New York announcing the wonderful news, which later turned out to be not that wonderful.

In a field as complicated as Alzheimer's, with various mechanisms and compounds and companies vying to create a truly miraculous treatment—and with so many people desperate for one—it's not too surprising that something like this happened.

More remarkable is that a few weeks ago the Food and Drug Administration actually approved a new Alzheimer's drug called Axona, but has gotten scant attention.

Developed by Accera, a Broomfield, Colorado, startup, Axona is not the end-all treatment for Alzheimer's, but it has demonstrated that it can boost the energy efficiency of cells and provide general neuro-protective properties that help Alzheimer's patients. Axona seems to work especially well for patients without the APOE4 gene that increases the carrier's risk for Alzheimer's.

"It is being launched as a prescription medical food, which is a slightly different path than a drug," says Zack Lynch, Executive Director of the Neurotechnology Industry Organization.

As the population of our planet ages and tens of millions of brains begin to degenerate, I suspect that there will be many more moments when wishes and desperation for a cure cause a flash of excitement.

Next time, let's hope that the headlines are real.

This article was amended to reflect that the drug Axona works well for patients without the gene that increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. 

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